British parents in France, French parents in GB - what are the best/worst bits about the way the other nationality raises their kids?

[Othersideofthechannel]

This is following on from the snacking debate in Food (sorry, can't make links work) and I do understand that not everyone from the same country chooses the same methods, but there are some cultural tendencies. Which one do you select/reject and why?
Anna8888 are you there?

ggg? Hello! I thought you had to leave? Lovely to see you back!

Hello ggg! Nice to see you popping in again. Think about you a lot...

we are in the Vienne in Potiou Charente

Rhubharb my in laws are in Cumbria they are in Kendal and have a house near us, they are english though

Ah well, next time you visit Kendal give us a shout ok?

Soon to be in Savoie (currently Belgium)

I'm in the Pas de Calais

What are your ambitions for your children's education? Do you want them to go right through the French system? To an international school? To a UK university? What do you try to teach them about (or pay for privately) that you feel is not adequately covered at school in France?

To be honest, I haven't considered this at all. DS started maternelle last Sept and has just turned 4. I am very happy with it so far but know that it becomes a lot more academic from CP onwards.
I do feel sad in advance that DCs will have less time for non-academic lessons, clubs and play than I did, but then they won't know any better so will probably find it easier to accept.
No international schools around here so that is not an option. I would like my children to experience the kind of Uni education I had (UK) but doubt we could afford to send them.
I suppose I'll try to teach them to enjoy learning and to question things they are told. Give them as much support as possible when it comes to hobbies, being creative etc.

I think about all this a lot. I also had a great UK university education and I would like my daughter and stepsons to have that experience if they are able to get a place at a good university. So I do try quite hard to find extra-curricular activities that will develop their creativity and powers of observation, which are aspects of personal development that are sorely lacking in the French education system.

(I think that the French system at its best is much better than the British system at developing powers of analysis. If you combine great powers of observation with great powers of analysis you should do well in life.)

Obviously in Paris there are more things on offer than elsewhere, though it can be very hard work - I hiked my elder stepson off to the other side of Paris every Wednesday all Autumnn/Winter to do acting classes at the Cours Florent. We all got exhausted... but it did do him some good, and I was able to check out the facilities for my daughter for later on.

othersideofthechannel - yes, my feeling is also that French maternelle is excellent. My daughter will start in September, so I haven't seen her "in action" at maternelle yet, but I did see one of my cousins' daughters go through (her local state) maternelle and was very impressed. I don't always go along with the French socialist system but maternelle seems to do a huge amount to iron out differences in home environments at an early age and prepare all children for learning.

Anyway, I am very lucky that I have a bilingual maternelle down the road and my daughter will be going there and hopefully getting the best of both worlds - French quality maternelle and both languages.

I have reservations about maternelle. I agree that it does a lot to even out social differences, but I found it to be too rigid a system for such young children, with not enough room for developing creativity. For example, my daughter did a lot of colouring (kept inside the lines, to encourage good pencil control, I have no problem with that) and was ticked off for colouring clouds in red and the grass blue, at the tender age of 3. She knew the correct colours but her creative streak preferred them to be different! The most worrying thing was that her teacher didn't seem to understand why my daughter should want the colours to be "wrong".

This is just one example but the whole setup made me feel a bit uneasy in the way it seeks to ram all children into the same mould from so young, rather than encourage and develop the enquiring mind that British universities consider to be the holy grail.

frenchleave - yes, you may be right. Another mother I know, French and a collège teacher, said that at her daughter's maternelle the children learnt one letter per week during moyenne section. Her daughter could read at four and write her name etc but the teacher wouldn't let her, insisting all children had to progress at the same pace...

Fortunately my daughter is going to a private school with lots of international children and it does take quite a lot of differences into account (and the children are streamed according to ability in English).

Yes and my neighbour's daughter, at the local state maternelle, is not allowed to read or write because she's not in CP yet, despite the fact that she is keen, bright and enthusiastic about learning.

This is why we chose a private Montessori school when we returned to France. But I'm dreading the day we have to choose a secondary school because none of the options appeal to me. Your international school sounds great, am v envious.

my main gripe with the school in France, was that by the age of 8, I don't think that my dd had written a single sentence that she had made up herself.
Fortunately, she was inspired to write poetry at home, by all the poetry that they had memorised by heart.
In general, I liked the French school, it was better than either english or german systems. Our maternelle teacher was not as rigid as the one decribed below.

frenchleave - just taking a look at the Association of American Wives of Europeans' guide to education in France and see that there are some Anglo options in French secondary school in Brittany - two options in Rennes. And something in La Baule. Any good? Do you want more info?

I don't want to be pessimistic, but I'm not sure that current British university students are in fact as creative and good at independent thinking as previous generations.

The ones I encounter in class are on the whole very passive indeed, and seem to have been drilled to pass exams rather than to develop any specific abilities or even to use their own ideas/imagination/brain.

Their grasp of English (spelling, grammar, etc.) is also a bit iffy.

DS is not quite 2, so I haven't thought beyond maternelle (although I would like him to go to an international school if he got in), but in spite of all Ségo's plans I'm not very keen for him to start maternelle until he's 3, because I do think they try to fit the children into a very set routine and that's hard when they are 2 or 2 and a half and only just adapting to a whole new group-based way of life.

AA - which universities are they from?

Anna - we've looked carefully into the bilingual options here and been very disappointed. The private one is at an extremely expensive, competitive catholic school that favours all the educational methods I don't like, and the state one seems only to be any good at lycee level for genuinely bilingual pupils (which mine are). La Baule looked much better but sadly is too far from home.

But thanks for the offer - very kind

frenchleave - that's bad luck. But if your children are genuinely bilingual they might get a lovely scholarship to university in North America - my cousin's daughter got one to Rutgers and is loving it.

Wow, that would be great. One thing they can do in the bilingual section of the state lycee in Rennes is the international option of the bac which opens doors to UK and US universities. Another 9 years before we get to that stage though

Yes, the OIB is great and I would like my daughter to do that. Actually, I would prefer her, intellectually, to do the IB but if you have French nationality (as she does) it's important to have done the French bac.

Be aware, anyway, that bilingualism and international schooling are good selling points at US universities. That was true in my day (I went to the European School in Luxembourg and quite a lot of my non-Anglo classmates got scholarship to the US) and seems to still be true today.

"Her daughter could read at four and write her name etc but the teacher wouldn't let her, insisting all children had to progress at the same pace... "
It seems to depend a lot on the teacher. DS is doing exercises from the moyen section (he is in a mixed class of tout-petits and petits) because his teacher noticed he was bored.

Anna,
They are from a range of universities, including Bristol, Sheffield, York, London Met, Maynooth and Wicklow (the order of presentation here being my highly subjective and approximate order of appreciation from best to weakest). Feel a bit mean seeing it written down like that.

Part of the problem I think is that it's a course requirement to spend a year abroad, but many of their home unis don't care about their marks. So I can see why they can't be bothered making too much effort, but not why their basic spelling, syntax, etc. is so poor.

They are clearly not used to being penalised for such things, and tend to get shirty when told that "he was sat on the wall" is not sufficiently formal in register for literary translations. I feel ancient and fuddy-duddyish when I teach them.

AA - very interesting list.

I did a year abroad when I was reading French and Spanish at Bristol many years ago and the university didn't pay any attention to what we got up to during that year, which was a huge shame. I was quite self-motivated, but I am sure I could have done more with my time.

I always adored translation. How did you manage to get into that line of work?

AA - oh, and don't feel ancient and fuddy-duddyish, you are absolutely right and have my complete support (I know that it's worthless)